The Flower Maiden
by asimbelmyne
Summary: His face told a story more invigorating than the one slipping slowly through her lips.


"The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains."

― Arthur Golden, _Memoirs of a Geisha_

* * *

When Lothíriel had been but a child, she had loved her mother more than the Bay of Belfalas and the mountainous peaks beyond it. These places had been large for a child of her size, too large to extend beyond the limitations of sight. As such she had come to believe that the world couldn't possibly be contained anywhere else but between the two. Like a bottle filled with sand, she had lived somewhere between its mouth and base, a place her mother had called the "in-between" after her inquiries had become too repetitive to ignore. This had been Lothíriel's world and in this world her mother had been its sun, her father its moon, and everything else constellations, constellations that revolved around the moon and sun.

Lothíriel had been steadfast in her beliefs at a very young age, never hesitating to express these tales to those available to hear them. Like all people in the presence of children whose imaginations roam farther than their own two feet, they had likened her stories to those spoken under the boughs of Ithilien. She hadn't realized that these men believed beyond reasonable doubt of her mother's Elvish descent. Lothíriel had been oblivious to these claims, but hearsay could hardly be renounced in a place as small as her "in-between" and she took no heed of it. Instead she had rejoiced in these assertions. Being the youngest of four, she had been content in being heard above the clamour of their politics. Lothíriel's father had revelled in the knowledge of his wife's lineage but she had not. It had been a subject of great strife between the two and although they ruled over Dol Amroth as King and Queen, they had never ruled as one.

Lothíriel's mother had possessed an air of high nobility such as Imrahil at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote. Touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Eldar Race, she knew of things that were to pass but lacked the experience required to prevent them. As such, it had been wrong of Lothíriel to attribute her mother's likeness to the sun when she had been very much like the moon. If she had been aware of Arwen Undómiel's existence, she would have agreed upon their shared fate. Descended from the line of Númenor, Lothíriel's mother had become nothing more than a memory of what had once reigned in her stead, a reminder of an age that was beginning to lessen its hold on Middle Earth.

Upon learning of her death, Lothíriel had been unpleasantly surprised. After an afternoon of sailing they had decided to wander through one of Dol Amroth's terraces in search of shrubbery, using daisies from the inner bailey as a crown for one of Lothíriel's games. She was to be an Elf of some sort and her brothers, as they disliked partaking in any game of her invention, had agreed to play the part of her entourage most unwillingly. Lothíriel's mother had allowed it because she had enjoyed their love of lore and their interpretation of it, although Lothíriel, excluding her brothers, had yet to understand half of what she had devised. These games were based on tales she had been told as a child, tales of Nimrodel the Elf-maid, Beren and Luthien's everlasting love, and even tales about Elwing and the Havens of Sirion.

Lothíriel could remember that afternoon in perfect clarity, how her mother's hand had grasped the stem of another daisy and how her fingers had hesitantly curled around it. This had seemed strange when it had happened, as Lothíriel knew her mother to be woman of strong morals, a woman who wouldn't have hesitated in executing an action as simple as removing a weed from its hold in the earth.

"You wear a crown of death, my love," she had said, placing the daisy chain reluctantly on Lothíriel's head. All she had been able to see were her mother's red knuckles. Wine-red blotches from the cold.

As the years fell victim to time, Lothíriel became a woman of great sensibility. She didn't love her mother any less but had come to realize that this love had been born of naiveté, something innocent and untainted. She would often reflect upon this when it had grown quiet in the Houses of Healing, after she had tended to those too sick to notice the distant look in her eyes. In these quiet moments Lothíriel would remember her voice, their exchanged smiles, and the sweet smell of decaying daisies. Lothíriel hadn't been the same and as a consequence, Imrahil had sent her to Gondor. This had been before Denethor had died, before the ring had been passed on to Frodo and before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Living in Minas Tirith had destroyed Lothíriel's ability to truly love. Instead it had become a dysfunctional thing, a thing filled with misery and a thing wrought from blood and sweat and tears.

"A man has asked to see you, Lothíriel."

Lothíriel looked up into Ioreth's grey eyes and sighed. She had inherited her mother's beauty. Most men noticed her hair, how it rested long and loose against her shoulders and how it obscured the back of her dress. But the rest of her was old fashioned. When she caught Ioreth's eye she didn't smile like she'd expected, but instead treated her to a sneer that she didn't feel like she'd earned.

"And what does he require?"

"Your time," she said and Lothíriel suppressed a groan.

"Is he wounded?"

Ioreth reached for Lothíriel's hand and pressed it to her lips. "Speak to him," she said, gauging her response, "and you will understand."

Lothíriel withdrew her hand from Ioreth's grasp, trying to find it in herself to draw a breath. Although she thought herself practical in comparison to most women her age, she knew nothing of love. It evoked images of shoes littering random hallways, laying not in pairs but often far apart, kicked off in random directions the second they were no longer required. With the weariness of one who is fatigued with the whining of a small child, Lothíriel tried to remember what it had been like. It had chilled her fingers into clumsy numbness, it had frozen her heart into a cold and death thing, and it had seeped into her toes as if it were her bare feet on the ground rather than her boots. This wasn't the first time a man had asked for her hand and it certainly wouldn't be the last. If he required her love she had nothing left to give.

But this man did not want her love and had no need for it. His name was Éomer. He had been concussed during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and had grown violent in his inability to leave the Houses of Healing. He was a tall man, neither dark nor fair. His nose was straight and large and his face would have been stern but for the humor that lurked about his mouth. He had the swagger of someone Lothíriel wouldn't have wanted to lock eyes with, let alone cross, yet his trajectory was set for her anyway.

"Are you the Flower Maiden?"

Each syllable was rounded and gruff and completely foreign to her untrained ears. "I am Lothíriel, nothing more."

"Yet death hangs about your head like a crown."

She bit sharply down on her lower lip, holding his stare in a futile attempt to broadcast her discomfort. "I do not wish to speak of this."

"As you wish," he said, pausing for a moment to catch his breath, "but I am rather anxious and would like to leave this place."

"You shall when I deem you well enough."

Éomer scoffed loudly as if he greatly underestimated her abilities. Lothíriel tried to ignore his assumptions but was unable to disregard something so obviously rude. If she had tried to do so more thoroughly she was sure that she'd explode, screaming assertions into his face in an attempt to reach him somehow. Yet she hadn't been raised to act beyond the confines of propriety. It was almost as if he wanted her to scold him, to come close enough so that he could see the whites of her eyes, to feel the lines of her body, to taste her breath. The tension between them was unlike anything Lothíriel had ever felt and her nerves were quickly frayed. While regaining her ability to breathe, she constructed elaborate rationalizations for why everything would turn out alright. But the nagging voice in the back of her mind spoke of nothing but doom ahead. Éomer was like the sun. He had people orbiting around him. Some were so close that it burned to be near and some were lucky enough to feel his warmness without wasting away. Lothíriel could already feel herself burning.

"If I were you I wouldn't laugh. I am absolute in my decisions."

"Is that so?"

"Yes!"

He looked at her for a long moment and then sighed, collapsing on the bed that had been provided for him. "Then let us speak."

Lothíriel thought Éomer to be without sense. Although she had been but five minutes in his presence, she could already feel his vivacity for life setting her body aflame. It was as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice teeming with feelings, wild feelings that she was too afraid to name. In these moments Lothíriel had learned to hate Éomer but had also learned to love him. Not in the literal sense of the word but in the same way she had thought her "in-between" to be impregnable. She had known from the start that his words had been those of a man too restless to stay put, for he was filled with life from the balls of feet to the whites of his eyes. His irises would have been brown if it weren't for all of the freckles there, like grass struggling to show through the golden-brown leaves of fall.

"What do you wish to hear?"

"Anything," he told her, pushing his hair from his eyes, "I wish to forget the stench of flesh and the vacant stares of the dead."

"I have no words to console you."

"Then you speak lies."

"I know of no tales that would be fit for your ears," she said, staring into his eyes, "if you were to hear them you'd think me mad."

"We're all mad here."

She looked at him long and hard, trying to determine whether he was truly concussed or not. He looked about as sane as she did, albeit a bit dirtier, but she knew that he had seen things that would have made her blood curdle if she had been in his shoes. After a moment of consideration, Lothíriel took a seat beside him and began to recite one of her mother's tales. She knew by the look on his face that he hadn't expected her to comply as easily as she had, yet his features expressed remote interest, almost as if he were straining to hear more. At first she was hesitant to speak, hesitant to even open her mouth, but his face told a story more invigorating than the one slipping slowly through her lips. The lines on his face etched the story of a happy life. His crow's feet spoke of laughter and the deep creases in his cheeks told of a man who gave away smiles like they were wishes. Yet a more sorrowful face she had never seen. It was the face of a man who had lost what he knew he must lose, but the knowing did not soften the desolation. So she stopped speaking.

"What troubles you?" she asked softly, leaning towards him. He stiffened and moved away from her more quickly than she could give him credit for.

"It is a tale too harsh for a woman's ears."

"I have ears to spare and I have seen things that a woman isn't supposed to see."

Lothíriel wanted to tell him that being a woman hadn't made things any easier. Instead she looked upon Éomer and grabbed his hands, wrapping her fingers around his palms in an attempt to draw him closer. They felt like sandpaper or perhaps stone, rough and unfinished. It suited him, she thought, looking into his deep eyes, cheeks reddening. His hands were warm in hers as he brought them up to his lips, her nerves tingling at the harsh comfort of contact.

"I have lived through many horrors, yet I feel myself slowly slipping into darkness."

"But you won't. You thrive on life."

"And what about yourself? Your loveliness brings men peace. Instead you have been rewarded with death."

She looked down upon their clasped hands and tried to forget her mother's words. Éomer's voice rang in her ears like the peal of a bell, a thousand cries, more or less distinct, mingled with his own unique drawl. It had been years since she had heard anyone mention anything remotely similar to those words and she had finally come to realize what they had meant. It hadn't been a blessing, nor would it ever be. Lothíriel had hair the colour of whisky, of fallen leaves browned and sleek with the first rain of autumn. But hair so dark against skin so white wasn't entirely normal, especially in Gondor. The shock and the contrast had only served to make her all the more ghostly, all the more haunting. When she turned to look her eyes were pale like the lightest of blue petals in the strongest of sunlight. And so she was prized and reviled in equal portion, sought and rejected, admired and distrusted. Lothíriel looked as if she were the very image of death.

"I take strength in those around me, Éomer. It is what I have always done."

"Just like us all," he said, looking deeply into her eyes. "You are a strange woman, Lothíriel."

"Only as strange as you would have me."

"And I would have you stay as you are," he said under his breath. But Lothíriel had overstayed her welcome.

"Farewell, Éomer. I trust that I shall see you tomorrow?"

But he didn't answer. She took that as a sign and made her way towards Ioreth, anxious to tell her of what they had spoken about. Lothíriel didn't know how she would go about it, nor how she would apologize for being so curt several hours before. But it no longer mattered. As she walked across the cobbled courtyard, she found a daisy nestled in her pocket, crushed as if it had been held in someone's hand for far too long. She could have sworn that it hadn't been there before and could only wonder at its sudden appearance. On impulse she turned around, trying to catch a glimpse of something in the darkness, be it a strand of hair, the sleeve of a dress, or Éomer's heavy step. Yet nothing was out of the ordinary.

The heat of Éomer's touch continued to burn her skin and the smell of decaying daisies began to fill the air.

For once she didn't mind.

* * *

 **A/N: It's been too long since I've written anything like this and I am glad to have taken the time to do so! I have always found** **Lothíriel's lack of character interesting, mainly due to the amount of creativity a person must harness when taking the time to flesh out someone so entirely devoid of personality. If any of you happen to be reading this, thank you for taking a stab at** **Lothíriel's character! This one's for you!**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Valēte,**

 **TeaAndWarmSocks**


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